This is the game I've been looking for. Other Worlds is a very adaptable and cinematic system. The focus is on making interesting stories that make sense. Conflict resolution is very elegant and shows you how to keep the story moving forward win or lose. Character generation is extremely customizable and ensures your characters are tied to the setting and the story right away.

I'll be honest, I was a little hesitant with this game at first. Most of my experience has been with more crunchy games. The same for my players. But we've played this several times now and my group is still eager for more.

The only thing I'd throw out as a caution is the little bit of front-end work that needs to be done when you set up characters or a new campaign. In fairness, I took a lot of this on myself as the GM. The book recommends doing some collaborative world building and I should have listened. It's not at all hard, but many hands make light work. I can only see that making my results even better next time.

OW is a cinematic-style role playing game. It has good mechanics for describing abilities abstractly. The book is lengthy but easy to read and understand. It does handle a wide variety of game worlds. OW lives up to the hype.

Well-written, beautifully illustrated by Storn Cook, packed with examples of how to hack the system for everything from D&D-esque fantasy to mecha sci-fi, to gritty cop drama, this is the game that could bring storygames to the grognards.

I've had a read through of Other Worlds, and in some ways I like what I see and in some ways I don't. There's a lot to this book, and I think it is well written and explained. I'm just not quite so sure that Mark managed to achieve the rules light system he was after.

I find the chapter on world building great, and I love the idea of the GM and the players getting together and building their world together with equal input. Very nice idea that has been bandied around a bit, but this is the first time I've seen it laid out in black and white.

The character generation system is in it's own way innovative, and I like what it is to a point. The establishment of templates is a great idea, which creates a lot of freedom but I feel potential limits character generation to a degree as well. All templates follow the same patter of 8 skills, 4 traits, 4 relationships, 4 goals, 4 flaws. Granted you don't have to take all that's offered, but removing any of the template "bits" doesn't allow you to add anything in it's place. Each character gets 3 templates; cultural, professional, and an Individuality template which is designed purely by the player. Trademarks are added, which are just another template following the same design as all the others but can represent things like gadgets, powers, pets, race, etc.

Games can be set at various power levels from neophytes to god-like beings, which makes sense for a game that can be used to play the Famous 5 or the Justice League. This is a great touch, but really not much different to what many universal systems try to achieve. I think Other Worlds does this well though.

The system itself is a fairly easy to learn percentile system, modified by the game's power level and a character's abilities. Easy to learn and simple to apply.

NPCs are often just simplified characters with fewer templates. I like the idea of simple NPCs, so it gets a big tick for that.

There is lots of GM advice on how to run an Other Worlds game, but I find the advice useful for just about any game, and well worth the read. I don't think that any GM can say that they can't improve their skills in some manner, and this section does a good job of providing a great toolkit.

I have to say the character sheet is just plain ugly, and looks confusing to read. Not sure how it would work in a game, but I can see players desperately trying to find their skills and abilities which are scattered all over the sheet.

Overall, I give the game 3 and a half dice out of 5. I like it, but I'm not sure I would play it.

Disclaimer: My name is listed as a playtester in the book, but in fact I only provided some observations about a previous draft. I must say, however, that I am very biased, as I a was excited about this project right from the beginning.

Other Worlds (OW) is a very well done conflict-based generic game. Player characters are made up of abstract abilities grouped into Cultural and Professional templates to which other abilities reflecting the character's specific individuality are added. Depending on the genre, characters can also have one or more Trademark templates which include special powers, magic, abilities reflecting the characteristics of sci-fi or fantasy races, special equipment (like having a super-spy car or a tricked-out Corellian tramp freighter), etc. Each ability gets an specific rating based on the power level of the game and can be used both as the base ability in a given conflict or as a supporting ability, increasing the base ability's rating. Anything can be an ability, and any ability can be used in a specific conflict: personality traits or quirks, professional skills, relationships, whatever.

Rolls are made using percentile dice in a very abstract resolution system which can be easily adapted to the flavour and tone of most any settings, with the possibility of using a more detailed resolution method for specially important or exciting conflicts. Consequences translate into new abilities which can help or hamper the character in further conflicts. Spotlight Points can be also used to modifiy the result of a roll.

Even though you can easily use OW to play in a stablished setting, one of its main strengths lays in the setting creation chapter. In OW, the group as whole creates the setting in which they want to play. It is basically a group brainstorming exercise in which genre, tone, setting details and main NPCs are created by the group. The rules also facilitate adding further detail to your gameworld as the game develops. Even if you have no interest at all in brainstorming a new setting with your players, you can easily use this chapter as a guideline for quickly creating a playable gameworld on your own. There is also an excellent chapter on customizing OW and adapting any setting, and a few short genre snapshots for sci-fi, superheroes, fantasy, pirates and wild west games.

The quality of writing is excellent and a generous amount of advice for playing the game can be found throughout the book, covering all you need to take into account to play OW. All this is wrapped in a simple but very professional and attractive layout by none other than Evil Hat's Fred Hicks, with a good number of eye-catching art pieces by Storn Cook.